The latest Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report has been published by the Global Volcanism Program, covering the week 28 March to 3 April 2012. The report is compiled by Sally Kuhn Sennert. Among the highlights of this week:

Alert level at Clevelandraised as a new lava dome becomes evident

A significant increase in seismicity at Nevado del Ruiz brings a rise in the alert level

High levels of sulphur dioxide emissions at Soufrière Hills

Another paroxysmal eruptive episode at Etna with lava fountaining and ashfall

The latest Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report has been published by the Global Volcanism Program, covering the week 14-20 March 2012. The report is compiled by Sally Kuhn Sennert. Among the highlights of this week:

A plume, probably water vapour, seen from Iliamna, where seismicity remained elevated

The latest Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report has been published by the Global Volcanism Program, covering the week 7-13 March 2012. The report is compiled by Sally Kuhn Sennert. Some of the news from a week that has seen quite a lot of new activity:

The eruption under way at the Puyehue Cordón Caulle volcanic complex in Chile, which began in June 2011 and which caused large-scale evacuations and much disruption last year, may yet reach its first anniversary but appears to be waning. The NASA Earth Observatory has published images of the volcano captured in February and March 2012 which show a small diffuse plume, much reduced from the voluminous ashy emissions that were causing so many difficulties across South America and further afield last year. Click on the image below (MODIS/Terra image, 7 March 2012) to go to the article at the NASA Earth Observatory.

As the Earth Observatory article points out, although ash levels are much reduced the legacy of Puyehue’s emissions remains for the local environment, with vegetation killed and lakes coated in floating particulates. An article at the Nature News Blog discusses some of the effects of the eruption on regional ecosystems. Recovery will of course occur, as the article recognizes, ending with the confident prediction by an Argentinian scientist that ‘the ecosystems will recover in due course’. Indeed, it is somewhat anthropocentric to talk, as the Nature News article does, of volcanic ash ‘disrupting’ local ecosystems when volcanoes are themselves a part of those systems.

The latest Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report has been published by the Global Volcanism Program, covering the week 29 February to 6 March 2012. The report is compiled by Sally Kuhn Sennert. Some of the highlights of the volcanic week:

The latest Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report has been published by the Global Volcanism Program, covering the week 22 February to 28 February 2012. The report is compiled by Sally Kuhn Sennert. Some of the highlights:

Rincón de la Vieja: two eruptions from Rincón de la Vieja’s active crater

Here is the latest Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report which covers the week 29 June – 5 July 2011, and is compiled by Sally Kuhn Sennert. Some of the highlights:

Even by the standards of sensationalized volcano stories in the mainstream media the headline in the Sydney Morning Herald and some other news sources today is pretty silly: ‘Red alert as “cork” plugs volcano’. This headline does what such headlines so often do: create a false sense of an urgent, dangerous situation by misrepresenting the facts. That little word ‘as’ is very important in the creation of this effect. There is indeed a red alert at Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, there has been since the eruption began: but by putting the word ‘as’ after the words ‘red alert’ an entirely baseless impression is created that the red alert is the result of whatever situation is described after the ‘as’. By the third word of the headline an expectation of potential disaster is established in the reader’s mind, and s/he is thus pre-disposed to react with alarm and concern to the news that a ‘cork’ is plugging the volcano. The word ‘cork’ itself confirms the impression — everyone knows what corks do, they contain pressure and when they are released an explosion results. This is made explicit in the original AFP story: ‘Geologists said a “cork” of lava, which emerged on Tuesday and was blocking even more lava from spewing forth, had the potential to create a huge build-up in pressure’. The headline rests neatly on that word ‘cork’ in the middle: the words preceding it prepare the reader for danger, the words after it confirm the nature of that danger, and another volcano scare story is set merrily upon its way.

By the time the AFP story has reached Earthweek it has become enveloped in a general air of breathless anxiety, as a standard bulletin from SERNAGEOMIN on the activity of the volcano becomes ‘an urgent warning’ about building pressure and powerful blasts: ‘geologists issued an urgent warning late Wednesday, saying a “cork” of lava had begun to block the volcano’s crater, building up pressure that could lead to another powerful blast’. The bulletins on Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, by the way, are normally released by SERNAGEOMIN around 15:30-16:00 local time, but of course it’s much more exciting to talk of ‘an urgent warning’ issued ‘late Wednesday’ than of ‘a standard bulletin’ issued ‘in the middle of the afternoon, as usual’.

The facts upon which the story is based in no way justify the alarmism of the Australian headlines, still less the utter rubbish from Earthweek. The ‘red alert’, as stated above, was in place anyway, and has not been changed as a result of the current situation. The ‘cork’ plugging the volcano is no big deal. Here’s what SERNAGEOMIN actually reports in its most recent bulletin for Puyehue-Cordón Caulle: ‘the possibility of an explosive event still remains because of possible obstruction of the conduit by the lava erupted and/or changes in the dynamics of the eruption, although there is little likelihood that it will reach the magnitude of the initial eruptive phase’. That is standard wording for a standard situation: the volcano has begun erupting lava, cooled lava may block the conduit creating the circumstances for explosive activity caused by continuing pressure within the volcanic system. This is not a disaster movie scenario, just one that needs careful watching (which is what SERNAGEOMIN is doing).

There is a particularly Australian context to the Sydney Morning Herald‘s daft headline. The flight disruptions caused by ash from Puyehue-Cordón Caulle have given Australia a lot of problems, and it’s understandable that Australian newspapers and their readers are sensitive about volcanic activity — particularly the threat of more explosive activity and more ash. But that’s all the more reason not to over-react, to get the facts right, and not resort to lazy sensationalism.

From the Australian Bureau of Meteorology comes a remarkable animated sequence of satellite images showing the ash cloud from Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano circumnavigating the globe between 6 and 11 June. Four stills from the animation are reproduced above: for the full sequence click on the image or follow this link to the story at Australian Business Traveller.

Most of the current news coverage of the ongoing Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption is indeed concerned with the return of the volcano’s ash to plague flights in Australia and New Zealand. ‘This is going to unfortunately have a knock-on effect for many travelers’ says a Qantas spokeswoman, producing as ugly and gratuitous a spit infinitive as I have seen in a long while. Australian airlines seem to be readier to cancel flights than their New Zealand counterparts: Qantas and its low-cost subsidiary Jetstar have cancelled their services in and out of New Zealand, reports the New Zealand Herald, while Air New Zealand has ‘continued near normal operations by flying at a lower altitude’ (although when the earlier cloud came in at just 3,000 metres Air New Zealand were also forced to cancel flights). Virgin and Tiger Airways began cancelling flights yesterday, and there are more disruptions today: Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have all been affected. The ash cloud has also had some effect on Cape Town International Airport in South Africa, where a small number of flights were delayed on 19 June as the ash cloud, on its second circumnavigation of the globe, passed directly across the flight paths. Among those whose travel plans were affected was South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma – erupting volcanoes are no respecters of persons.

The ash is forecast to remain to the south and south-east of Australia for the next day or so, according to the latest volcanic ash advisory from Darwin VAAC (issued 08:57 UTC 21 June 2011). The map accompanying the advisory is shown below: click on it to view the full-size original at Darwin VAAC.

The latest news on the flight disruption is that Virgin is planning to resume flying earlier than expected, following forecasts that the ash is due to move ‘into the Tasman [Sea] tomorrow and no longer affect flights from the major cities’.

The Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, compiled by Sally Kuhn Sennert, has been issued for the week 8-14 June 2011. Another week high in volcanic interest:

Kizimen: eruptive episode with ash plumes reaching 4-5 km altitude

Nabro: eruption following an earthquake swarm sent ash to 13.7 km altitude

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